


Not Quite Gods:  Onus

by ANaTHEMaDEVIsed



Series: Not Quite Gods [2]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed (TV), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Supergirl (TV 2015), Witches of East End (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-27 07:20:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6275020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ANaTHEMaDEVIsed/pseuds/ANaTHEMaDEVIsed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the DC Universe, there is a planet populated by “witches” called Naltor.  What if the ancient ancestors of the Charmed One's originated from that planet?  If Naltor and Krypton were close neighboring planets in the same galaxy, perhaps what follows is what happened when Kara Zor-El of Krypton meets Paige, The Last W'Arr En of Naltor.  Drawing heavily on the ancient Aliens theories and the Book of Enoch from the bible, this story explores the origin of what human mythology typifies as witches and their place in the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Please Read the Notes

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Notes: 
> 
> I borrowed the format of this title page and the wording of the disclaimer in its entirety from Heartsways on Passion Perfect. Thank you! 
> 
> This fic touches on a sexual relationship between adoptive sisters. If you find this subject disturbing, be forewarned. 
> 
> Sorry no Beta and still editing. Read at your own peril.
> 
> Inspiration for this story: Ultimately the intent in creating Dark!Supergirl is to write a character that after a seriously violent trauma at age 12, and being forced to revisit that trauma at age 25 through escalating violence, a psychic incursion by an alien plant, the death of her last family member who shared her life on Krypton and learning that this death is at the hands of the only person she truly trusts, Kara experiences a state of dissociative identity. There is the part of her who is pre-Supergirl Kara Danvers and there is the part of her who is becoming General Kara Zor-El. In order for these two new personalities to thrive the dual Kara/Supergirl construct is eliminated. The first indication of this is when Kara says she’ll never put on the cape again. Inspiration drawn from Evie’s journey in V for Vendetta, also Sia’s songs Titanium and Elastic Heart. Kara can no longer hold onto innocence if she intends to be a true hero. A true hero isn’t for hire by a government agency and a true hero may on occasion find blood on her hands. 
> 
> Also to be noted, some of my choices have been influenced by lots of what I love and admire or consider worthy of homage in some way shape or form. Recently, I’ve been reading sci-fi writer Scott Meyer and fallen deeply in love with the television show the Magicians, a dual source of inspiration in this process of envisioning Paige's character developing mastery of her power through dedicated study not just a supernatural inheritance. I am an absolute dance enthusiast. I spend an inordinate amount of my free time absorbing choreo videos on YouTube. Part of my inspiration for the way Paige taps into the magical energy of the world comes from this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RF6kV2MVxw&list=WL&index=5. See timestamp 1:20. 
> 
> Simply put, #BlackHermione. DO Not Proceed if you do not agree. Cause that's the way it is. 
> 
> By length, this fic is a novel. It is riven with angst and some instances of violence and explicit sex. In imitation of real life, I cannot guarantee an arbitrarily happy ending. I call that fair warning.
> 
> Disclaimer:
> 
> All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work belong to their respective owners. As this material is an interpretation of the original and not for profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.

Dear Readers,

I've thoroughly enjoyed writing Not Quite Gods. I intend to continue writing it as a chapter by chapter serial. I will say, even if you do not enjoy the adventures I've dreamed for these characters, I appreciate you taking the time to read them. In the interim, I encourage you to read the notes and expect teasers if curious about where NQG is headed next. Please be advised that there are lots of warnings and disclaimers. It is not my intent to trigger unsuspecting readers with anything I've written. It's all meant in good fun and not intended to offend or traumatize by any stretch of the imagination. If you find that you are sensitive to the subjects contained herein, please by all means, do not continue beyond this chapter. I'd prefer to remain unapologetic about the choices I've made with these characters and the adventures in which they partake. I'd also prefer to sleep soundly knowing that no one has been hurt in some way by anything I've written. Thank you again for taking the time to read and I hope to hear from you.

Kindly,  
ANaTHEMaDEVIsed


	2. Please Read The Notes

Krypton  
12 years ago

 

“What is that you’re making, Little One?” Bottom lip between her teeth, Kara’s concentration was swayed only for the moment it took to reply.

 

“Hi, Aunt Astra.” Kara focused, her movements delicate with the sculpting wand as she brought the metal glowing under it to life. “It’s a …” The wand slipped and the shape forming under Kara’s careful ministrations sagged into indeterminate slag. Frustrated, Kara pushed the wand away from her hand with a huff. Astra In-Ze observed her niece with quiet amusement. Hands clutched tightly into fists, Kara turned away from the small work bench in her bedroom, and stared out the window. The city was alight with activity. She watched pods flitting to and fro and breathed.

 

Astra wandered over to stand next to her niece as the child struggled to maintain a lofty level of composure she’d adopted from her mother. It was an admirable trait in one so young. Astra often found herself reminded that the House of El would again be great when it came time for Kara to lead it.

 

She waited until Kara grew still, less agitated, then reached out to run a loving hand through Kara’s light brown hair. Kara looked up, meeting her Aunt’s eye with renewed determination. 

 

“It will be a bird when I complete it.”

 

“A bird?” Astra hummed, letting the thought of such a creature, long extinct, float through her mind.

 

“Yes, for father.” Kara nodded emphatically. Astra took a seat at the workbench, and pulling Kara onto her lap nodded for her niece to grab the sculpting tool. Kara did as indicated, holding the tool in her hands only to gaze at the lump of metal with consternation.

 

“Tell me about birds.” Astra instructed. Kara turned and met the open appraisal on her Aunt’s face with excitement.

 

“Oh Aunt Astra, they are wonderful creatures!” Kara exclaimed. “A billion years ago, when Rao was young, burning hot and warming Krypton with bright, white warmth, birds flew in the skies.” Listening closely, Astra pointed to the unformed metal, and Kara turned. As she spoke, she began carefully to sculpt. “But as Rao matured, cooled, so too did our planet. Too cold, most birds became extinct but some evolved over sixty million years. They survived.” Kara paused to appreciate her work. Wings thrown wide as though the small sculpture might itself take to the sky, Kara’s vision gleamed in the crimson light from the window. “And became us.”

 

“Indeed they did, Little One.” Astra smiled, duly impressed. Kara had such a fine artistic talent. But Kara insisted she intended to follow in her mother’s footsteps, in pursuit of justice. Astra often found herself dismayed when Kara clung to such blind idealism. Perhaps one day, with time, Kara would choose a path better suited to her talent.

 

Midvale, CA  
Present

 

“The simple fact remains that …” Eliza Danvers listened carefully to her daughter’s speeding heartbeat through the stethoscope, before drawing back to gaze patiently waiting for Alex to make her heated point. Alex lay on the living room sofa in her childhood home. It was the next best approximation to a doctor’s office given she couldn’t actually concede to a formal appointment that might illuminate the circumstances surrounding her expectant condition. “That …” She sighed, eyes darting from the ceiling to her mother’s face, relieved not to find exasperation or disappointment, or Rao’s sake disgust. There had been discussions since Alex had revealed her pregnancy, in which Eliza had been vocal in her disappointment. But entering her sixth month of gestation, Alex couldn’t wait for discomfort and anger to dissipate. She’d made that phone call out of desperate need. Just beginning to show, her work at the DEO was in jeopardy and there was the looming question of the safety of the child she carried. Not to mention, Alex had yet to inform Kara a looming reality from which she yearned for an escape.

 

“Did Kara ever tell you that Kryptonians evolved from avian species rather than primates?” Eliza sat exceedingly calm on her coffee table, and crossed her legs. 

 

“Birds?” Alex murmured, distracted. “She always said they didn’t have them on Krypton.”

 

“They didn’t.” Eliza confirmed nodding. “When their sun matured into a red dwarf, the birds became extinct due to the temperature change. Well,” Eliza tipped her head, “Those that didn’t evolve that is. It’s fascinating when you consider some of Kara’s more intriguing anatomical and physiological attributes. Her bone density for example.” Eliza pointed out which Alex naturally jumped in, as willing to rhapsodize about scientific implications and oddities as her mother..

 

“Without the empowering effect of solar radiation, her bones would be far too fragile here on Earth.” Alex, finding comfort in the subject continued in her mother’s stead. “Her respiratory system allows for an uninterrupted air supply due to the presence of a sac posterior to her lungs. It stores three quarters of each inhalation for the purpose of immediate lung replenishment during exhalation.”

 

“And pair that with her circulatory system …” Eliza coaxed.

 

“Yes, um …” Alex sat up, hands gesturing as she spoke. “Her heart is about twice the size expected in a human female of her mass. Add that to the presence of about ten times as much surface area in blood vessels that are designed to withstand massive tensile stress through the cycle of constriction to dilation. The end result is greater increased gas exchange ratios per blood volume, making her a cardiopulmonary work of art capable of athletic feats well beyond human capabilities.”

 

“Precisely, Alex.” Eliza gazed at her daughter pointedly.

 

“Precisely what, Mom?” Alex shrugged, at a loss. “You’ve seen the same X-Rays and tests half of Kara’s life that I have? What exactly does that have, if anything, to do with me being pregnant with your grandchild.” Alex took a steadying breath to add, “An alien-human hybrid.”

 

“Well, my point is that it’s impossible.” Eliza replied, watching her daughter carefully. As expected, Alex was quick to temper. Off the sofa in a flash, Eliza observed angered pacing from one end of the living room to the other.

 

“Really, Mom?” Alex muttered, “Is this the part where you ask me how much I’ve been drinking and where I’m spending my nights?”

 

“Alex.” Eliza’s tone was warning. She’d known how Alex would react to the allusion but there was no denying the facts.

 

“I’m not twenty-three years old anymore, Mom.” Alex halted in her tracks, hands on splayed against her abdomen. “I grew up. You know that.”

 

“I do.” Eliza, allowed. “And I’m not suggesting that the child you are carrying isn’t Kara’s.” Puzzled, Alex’s shoulders dropped, as she relaxed out of the defensive posture her mother’s words had inspired.

 

“Then what are suggesting?”

 

“Ostensibly and biologically,” Eliza looked at her daughter’s stomach, as though she could see past the hands placed there and into the womb that carried a rapidly growing fetus. “That she’s not yours.” Alex appeared for a moment like she might just turn and walk out the door. Cause why bother, right? What could either of them possibly say in response …

 

“Holy Rao.” Alex felt herself suddenly dizzy, barely managed to slide into a nearby armchair. Wide-eyed, she regarded her mother in shock.. Her mouth worked a wide O for a moment until she finally managed a breathless, “They evolved from birds.”

 

DEO Headquarters  
Six Months Ago

 

Alex typed diligently with her right hand, while holding her tablet in the left. She’d reduced the speaking speed of the Allura AI to accommodate her note-taking. Nevertheless her fingers cramped with the effort to keep up.

 

“So …” Alex tapped a few final keystrokes upon the touch screen. “Am I to understand that several thousand years ago on Krypton there was a social movement determined to preserve the purity of lineage among the great houses.”

 

“That is correct.” The intonation drew Alex’s momentary attention from her notes. Not often did she have to remind herself that this was merely an artificial construct and not Kara’s mother, even if it bore the breadth of Allura’s knowledge and experience. This computerized intelligence could answer questions to which Alex was not privy, illuminating the histories of Kara’s first word, first steps. What toys did Kara dearly love as an infant? As bonded as she was to Kara, Alex keenly felt the chasm of those missing moments from her experience of sister, protector, confidant. She could never replace what she missed in those events, though often she’d been tempted to inquire. Who had Kara been on Krypton?

 

“And in doing so, they created a third gender caste capable of a form of parthenogenesis?” Alex continued.

 

“No.” Alex rolled her eyes at the circumspect nature of the AI’s answer.

 

“Please clarify.” Alex commanded.

 

“The Matriarch caste described as being intersexed in gender were genetically designed as capable of implanting a fertilized egg within the womb of a female mate should conditions arise that no genetically viable offspring directly connected to the bloodline of the house could otherwise be produced through mating between a male and female bond pair. At the time, bonding ceremonies between a female head of house and a female mate were forbidden due to the inability to produce offspring to carry the bloodline. But upon these epigenetic interventions, it became not only possible but socially necessary for the daughters of great houses to bond to female mates who would then carry the female successors to the line.”

 

“So these sweeping changes to Kryptonian genetics prevented the old houses from ceasing to exist?” Alex asked.

 

“Correct.” Allura confirmed simply. Never shuts up this one, Alex thought wryly.

 

“And Kara is a matriarch, though both her mother and aunt were genetically female.” Alex frowned, “How is that possible?”

 

“This is made possible via a recessive sex selector carried by her father, a member of the House of El.” Allura explained. “Kara’s mother and aunt are members of the House of Ze. Had either of them been matriarchs, it is unlikely they would have bonded to their chosen male partners.”

 

“Makes for a fascinating twist on matrilineal society.” Alex murmured, finishing up her notes and setting her tablet to sleep mode.

 

“Indeed.” Alex’s eyes shot up at the unexpected rejoinder from the Allura AI. Sometimes … Alex shook her head, dislodging the unlikely thought.

 

“Uh, thanks.” She exited the chamber, hearing the barely definable sound of the program powering down as she left. She’d taken prolific notes, but she knew they’d only prove a distraction if she didn’t take the time to study before the task that loomed ahead. Finding her way back to her lab, Alex made the quick decision to forward her findings to her Mom with a short explanatory email. Almost six, catching a glance at her phone, she decided to take the time to make sure she felt completely comfortable with the subject matter then … well, she’d at least wait until after rush hour traffic before making her way over to Kara’s. Definitely enough time for a quick stop for provisions and then … Alex sighed, sitting numbly before her computer terminal. Maybe, she contemplated shifting her schedule back soundly by yet another half an hour, she should devote a bit of time to google youtube videos on how to give a grown-up talk about puberty.

 

Meanwhile in Metropolis  
Present Day

 

“Excuse me.” Paige jerked involuntarily, jostled as a large, suited gentleman with salt and pepper hair accidentally bumped into her chair. For a moment she stared at the familiar lines of his face, before blinking to find herself staring at a stranger. “Sorry.” The guy shrugged somewhat noncommittally, juggling his high-priced boutique coffee and a pastry, and fondling the touch screen of his phone. He was already mid-call and halfway to the door of the busy little coffee house by the time Paige registered his apology. Shaking her head, she resolved that she couldn’t give in to such moments, when her mind threatened to transport her back to the recent violence and to the only words she’d ever spoken to her father. She’d agreed to meet Kara in Metropolis so that they could have a chat with Clark, Kal-El. But Paige hadn’t slept for thinking about what all this meant, and the battle that still raged whenever her eyes slipped closed. She could still taste the smoke, chalky and acrid at the back of her throat. The sound of those hostilities still echoed, and her voice, lifting above it all. “Samael.”

 

“Who?” Kara asked, sitting down at the other side of the cramped table top bearing hot drinks and chocolate croissants. It wasn’t a Pain au Chocolat unless it came with the Patisserie stamp of approval.

 

“Hmm?” Paige, drawn gladly from the chaos of her thoughts, offered Kara a look of thanks. She had two bites into her pastry before Kara made a half-hearted attempt at deterring her progress.

 

“Who’s Samael?” Kara asked. She lifted the top off her cocoa to discreetly blow a light cooling jet across the steaming beverage. Taking a healthy sip, she regarded Paige expectantly.

 

“No one.” Paige murmured, chewing aggravatedly. She coughed choking, then slurped at her exceedingly hot coffee immediately burning her mouth. Red -faced and watery of eye, she glanced at Kara who gazed back meaningfully. “It’s nothing, alright.”

 

“Yeah, sure. I guess.” Kara sounded anything but alright with Paige’s current state of mind. “Listen …”

 

“Kara!” Kara glanced up, face brightening at the interruption shouted over the din of milk being steamed, coffee beans ground, and customers jostling to relay their supremely high priority orders.

 

“Clark!” Kara stood, arms soon filled with a bespectacled man that in spite of his sport coat and khakis looked like he was chiseled from granite. He lifted Kara in a tight embrace. Toes scraping the air, Kara batted at his shoulders laughing uncontrollably. “Alright, alright. Put me down.” Paige gazed up, and up from the table. Kara barely tall as her cousin’s broad shoulders, grinned beatifically. Had Paige ever seen so carefree an expression on that Kryptonian face?

 

“Can’t I be happy to see my little cousin?” Clark pulled Kara under his arm, squeezing until Kara’s cheeks brightened.

 

“Little?” Kara rolled her eyes as though offended.

 

“Yes, little.” Clark gave Kara one last massive squeeze as though to illustrate the point. “You must be Paige.” He let go of Kara and reached out, his right hand easily twice the size of Paige’s face.

 

“Yes.” Paige stood, grasping Clark’s hand, and felt the shake rumble jarringly through her bones. If that was the big guy holding back, Paige could only imagine a true superhero grip. Clark smiled sheepishly at the grimace on Paige’s face.

 

“Sorry about that.”

 

“No worries.” Paige allowed, opening and closing her right fist to reestablish a bit of feeling. “Thanks for meeting us.”

 

“Anything for my little cousin.”

 

“Honestly.” Kara grumbled, to which Clark only grinned widely. His eyes, a blue as shocking as Kara’s, sparked with mischief. 

 

“I know a quiet place nearby we can talk.” Outside the cafe, Metropolis was a sprawling city with bustling sidewalks and streets angry with traffic. It was all Paige could do not to orb away, back to the quiet, the peace of East End. Home cooked dinners with Joanna and Wendy, and the soothing crackle of a fire to ward the chill as evening gave way. As if sensing her unease, Kara’s hand had soon slipped into Paige’s. The gentle squeeze of reassurance was, thankfully, nothing like her cousin’s grip. You okay, Kara mouthed inquiry as Clark led them on an impromptu tour pointing out this place and that, all quickly lost from Paige’s attention and memory. Paige nodded, even managed a wobbly if not entirely convincing smile. Kara only took that as indication to hold on, keeping Paige close, as they weaved through the irascible herd of pedestrians. 

 

When at last they’d made their way to a high rise apartment, tastefully furnished, Clark all but dropped his mild-mannered persona. Behind the glasses, Kara and Kal-El both were different entirely.

 

“So.” He intoned all business, drawing them out to the balcony. There they could stand and hear the call of the city and yet not be buffeted, relentlessly by it. “Tell me.”

 

“Lex Luthor.” Kara replied, face stony. “He has control of the Naltorian ship and all the remaining kin.”

 

“Those few who haven’t met their long overdue end at our hands, that is.” Paige pointed out blandly.

 

“He is a persistent source of aggravation.” Clark’s expression darkened. 

 

“My Commander Lesla-Lar was initially unsure as to how this could have happened.” Kara pursed her lips, regarding Clark closely. “However, since the shipboard computers could be networked through my control crystal …” 

 

“Anyone with Kryptonian technology in their hands could gain access.” Clark surmised, and sighed, hands on his hips. Shaking his head he admitted with reluctance, “Many years ago, Luthor managed to locate and gain access to my first attempt at a Fortress of Solitude.” He gazed at Kara with obvious regret, “I thought at the time that its location would be a significant enough deterrent to intruders. The present location and security measures were inspired by his trespassing.

 

“I take it he managed to abscond with several data crystals.” Paige arched a brow at Clark, who nodded confirmation.

 

“Indeed he did.”

 

“And it’s taken him this long to make use of them.” Kara muttered. “Is there nothing more worrisome than a patient megalomaniac with carefully constructed plans to take over the world?”

 

“Um, yeah.” Paige replied, easily offering Kara a lopsided grin. “Not having the means to stop him.”

 

“And do we?” Kara countered, seeming for the first time since the battle of Halliwell Manor, like an average girl rather than an embattled General. Paige reached out and clasped Kara’s hand, feeling the immediate warmth of a connection that had sparked from the moment they’d met.

 

“Of course.” Paige smiled and Kara seemed actually to take the gesture to heart, no matter how precarious their situation.

 

“I can help.” Clark placed a hand on Kara’s shoulder. “Stronger together.” 

 

In Paige’s mind, this was the heart of their heroic epic, this image of the three of them in a clarifying moment when time stops and a breeze trips across lifting hair and rustling clothing. Clark’s expression resolute and Kara hopeful, and even Paige a pillar next to these gods of the new world. Let it come, she thought, daring fate and cursing enemies.

 

“To protect this world and New Krypton.” Kara conceded, dipping her head in grateful acknowledgement. “I’ll gladly accept.”

 

Azkaban Prison  
Three Years Ago

 

“On your feet, inmate 1302.” Hermione startled at sudden cacophony, the collision of metal upon metal. Her single blanket, a thin, scratchy weave slid to the floor of her cell. Eye squinting in spite of the dim, she watched her condensed breath billow before her. But for her cot, the mattress that felt like cardboard, and the four foot by eight foot box scooped out of granite, there was nothing. There was only the bars covering the small square cut in the door through which the duty guard now glowered.

 

“Oi, I said get up!” The ever-present cold had rendered her muscles stiff. She stumbled from the cot, the shock of her bare feet against the floor inspired her to prance. She tip-toed a disjointed dance at the center of her cell wearing little more than a cloth sack with holes cut for head and arms. She pulled her elbows close into her side, willing her jerky, bouncing movement to warm her shivering limbs. The guard watched a moment as though ascertaining the likelihood she might pose some threat. A month into her sentence, subsisting largely on moldy bread, the gaunt spectre that stared unrepentantly back posed exactly that. Hermione bared her teeth in a grin meant to convey challenge.

 

“You have a visitor.” The guard spat, clearly disappointed he wouldn’t have the opportunity this moment to remind Hermione of her place. His face disappeared from behind the bars to be replaced by that of a man she hadn’t soon expected to see in this last habitat of the hopeless and depraved.

 

“Hermione.” 

 

“Keh …” Hermione coughed, made a valiant attempt to clear the dry edge of disuse from her throat. Her neighbors hadn’t exactly proven to be ardent conversationalists. Even on her cellblock where none had been sentenced to the dementor’s kiss, much of the social currency exchanged was rabid screaming and epithet. Trying again she managed a hoarse, “Kings.”

 

“I’d have come sooner, but …” His wan smile reflected brightly and Hermione marvelled at seeing anything so effortless and prim after a month living this grim monochromatic surrealism.

 

“It’s okay.” Hermione shook her head not wishing to hear whatever excuse might soon foul the frigid air between them. “What brings you here today? Another job offer?” She joked and the Minister of Magic looked away as though embarrassed.

 

“Listen, there’s not much I could do.” His dark eyes caught Hermione’s again. “I tried to get your sentence reduced but there are people out there calling you an enemy of the state.”

 

“I’m sure I don’t need to ask who.” Hermione smirked.

 

“This isn’t a joking matter.” Shacklebolt’s expression darkened with anger and no small touch of disappointment. “They’re saying you’re trying to start a revolution.” Hermione rolled her eyes, scoffing at the very idea that staging a protest in the Ministry of Magic and taking control over the networked communication of the entirety of wizarding society was suddenly on par with revolution. Sure it was a political action intended to draw attention; but a handful of well-organized muggle-born wizards and witches raising their voices in the main entry hall of a solitary government building barely aspired to a disruption much less a revolution.

 

"There is no revolution, Kings. Do not be so easily taken in by the editorial license of sensationalists the likes of Rita Skeeter.”

 

“Look around you Hermione.” Shacklebolt right hand rose to point at her through the bars. “You’re in Azkaban on a cell block with Voldemort’s sympathizers, those who aided and abetted a serial murderer. Your best mates Harry and Ron put them here after the war to answer to unspeakable crimes not exactly on par with your brand of malcontent politicism. So think twice about making light as though someone else has spun deception around you.” He took a breath. “This isn’t Hogwarts. Your pretense to a cause will not be seen as the folly of youth. How many more friends do you intend to lose?” It was too soon, surely Kingsley knew, because Hermione could read the regret on his face for the insensitivity of his allusion to an untimely and violent death that had not been balanced with justice. She was at the door in a flash, hand slamming against it to echo resoundly through the block. Kingsley jumped back, horrified as much by the transformation as its suddenness, in his regard of Hermione’s fevered assault against the wood. 

 

“How dare you!” She shouted, spittle flying. “Can you not see this is a struggle? This, a bid for equal rights and protections under the law, to not be killed in the streets and forgotten, is grasping at a life that we may not have been promised but have no choice but to live!” Hermione could see Kingsley making a gesture as though waving someone away beyond the scope of her vision though he remained standing at what he determined a safer distance. 

 

“They will brand you a terrorist and your life will be relegated to the years you spend rotting in cells just like this one.” Kingsley stated simply.

 

“Only those so privileged with unadulterated freedom, the hate-mongering blood purists, consider such struggle to be militant terrorism because they so abhor the thought of anyone else's freedom but their own.” Hermione took a deep breath, stepping back from the door. "I fought in the war beside you, Kings. I was tortured and I killed witches and wizards under a banner that claimed itself righteous, yet was truly no different than the tyrant attempting to wrest power. Your almighty Ministry of Magic was infected by facism long before a muggle-borne wizard of unparalleled power rebranded himself as a savior. This world has never operated in monodichotomies. Good versus evil? It’s laughable when you consider the horrors perpetrated on both sides.”

 

“We went to war to save our world, Hermione.” Kingsley closed his eyes, head shaking as though truly disappointed to hear such divisive speech from a long-time ally and friend.

 

“We went to war,” Hermione spat in return, “To protect the political and financial interests of the precious few pure-blooded families manipulating our collective livelihood behind their emerald curtain. The moment Voldemort's agenda threatened the ancient supremacy of those pure-blooded families was the moment their heavily propagandized war of dark versus light began.” Hermione glanced down at her right wrist, the fingers of her left hand unconsciously moving to trace the letters of that hateful word her once blind idealism had earned. “How else to politicize an army of teenagers, children convinced that casting their meager lives to martyrdom was their own revolutionary idea? Men like Dumbledore who set the scales in motion were not heroes, nor were they gods despite how we worshiped them.” Hermione met Kingsley’s gaze with unspent fury. “They were villains."

 

“We’re lucky, Hermione. We didn’t just live, we won.” He murmured taking a step closer. “Is this how you’ll spend the rest of your life, denouncing our victory with revisionist history?”

 

"After the final battle had waged, after all that chaos and death and suffering, do you know what remained?” Hermione gazed expectantly, and when no answer was forthcoming she supplied it. “The uncertainty of my future, the unrelenting misery of a boot on my neck, on the necks of any deemed impure by the very same wizards and witches who’d slunk behind the walls of your Ministry long before you sat behind that desk. So truly, what changed? Hmm?” Hermione shrugged, drawing back to sit on the unyielding surface of her cot. “Nothing. Not for me."

 

“I see now that I cannot help you, Hermione.” Kingsley murmured softly. “I fear should you continue on this path, you’ll soon find that no one among the wizards and witches whom you once called trusted friends can.” In the silence that followed Kingsley’s departure, Hermione pondered the true meaning behind the Minister of Magic’s words. They had not been a disavowal, but in them a clear warning could be heard. If her cause was righteous, she would know the disappointment of spent loyalty. But unlike the war in which she’d been stripped of innocence and youth, this sacrifice would worthily be hers to choose.

 

 

Banned, On the Run  
Present Day

 

“Give yourself up, Granger.” And now he’ll say, Hermione rolled her eyes as the wizard brandished his wand in a practiced attempt at menacing only to proceed with the all too cliche, “You’re surrounded and you’ve got nowhere to run.” It was as though every auror she encountered had been watching bad police procedurals and expected her to retort - You’ll never take me alive!

 

“Hey guys,” Hermione began holding her arms wide at her sides, palms out to show she was decidedly unarmed. She’d nearly gotten a Stupefy to the tenders a few weeks back in Hogsmeade because some over-zealous off-duty Auror had been inexplicably confused by the pen in her hand. What reasonable person mistakes a Bic for a wand? Of course he could have also just been intent on cursing a wanted criminal. “I’m not here for trouble. I just wanted to meet my friend.” Ginny, the recipient of Hermione’s secret request to meet at the small pub off Diagon Alley, was conspicuously absent in spite of the affirming RSVP sent via owl. Hermione found herself only marginally surprised that her school pal, a many times honored auror, probably had an ulterior motive when she’d promised to keep the meeting secret. Another one bites the dust, Hermione thought considering the swiftly dwindling number of steadfast friends from the good old days. Obviously the international manhunt and countless headlines reading FUGITIVE in bold letters had seen her severely diminished in their esteem.

 

“You’ll come and you won’t cause a fuss, understand?” The small alley feeding the entrance to Guilroy and Marshall Freehouse was teeming with Ministry robes. The narrow opening to the main street blocked by a handful of brawny sorts who hadn’t even bothered to draw their wands. Hermione had backed to the alley’s opposite end, wagering the likelihood of escape against several stories of unscalable brick.

 

“Or,” Hermione proposed, tilting her head in a contemplative fashion. “You could let me go.” This earned some snickers from the assemblage of gladiators behind the red-faced bloke carelessly flashing his wand. Apparently he took offense to Hermione’s easy-going tone in contradiction to what he expected, the caricature that lived in the headlines, mindless, raving, lunatic, and eager for violent confrontation. Looks could be deceiving, but Hermione perceived him equally likely to stun himself as to cast with any accuracy at an intended target. This certainly aided in her ability to draw a few steady breaths and appear as nonthreatening as possible. In this post war society, law enforcement had become the antithesis of justice, synonymous with unregulated recrimination. Let Azkaban empty, they said. Kill them in the streets. 

 

“You know if nothing else. This should teach you to stop dropping in to wizarding London as though you aren’t currently gracing the cover of every single newspaper.” Hermione smiled at the sound of the voice behind her. 

 

“What’s that you said, Granger?” Given the lack of any other response, the latest arrival to this impromptu little get together was not visible to these authoritative folks intent upon Hermione’s capture.

 

“Mind if I get you out of here before the Boy Scout decides to do more than polish that wand of his?” This time Hermione could actually feel the exhalation of breath on the back of her neck, the words whispered close enough that no one could likely hear.

 

“I said, ” Hermione grinned, and waved, fairly sure that the pose would be the feature image for the front page of every paper’s evening edition. “Let’s get out of here.” Hermione disappeared a heartbeat later in a sparkle of lights to uproar that reverberated, filling the alley and the adjacent streets.

 

"Since we've been on the run she’s discovered cigarettes and caffeine. It's been absolutely delightful." Hermione eyed Bellatrix in her movie star sunglasses, cigarette tipped downward from full ruby lips and a to go coffee cup dangling below a delicately bent wrist. She looked like any other muggle seated outside a corporate coffee entity on a sunny day.

 

“Wow.” Paige noted the difference as they tread side by side up towards the subject of conversation. The woman, having abandoned her school robes for muggle fashion with impressive agility, had the finely styled edge of an upscale magazine ad. “I mean …” Paige just shook her head in amazement.

 

“Right?” Hermione murmured, in tacit agreement. 

 

“Is that couture?” Paige whispered just as they drew to a stop tableside. Bellatrix barely acknowledged their presence.

 

“I take it your little meeting in Diagon Alley didn’t exactly proceed as planned.” She sniffed, drawing the cigarette away from her lips to carelessly flick ashes to the ground. She uncrossed and recrossed her legs, leaning back as though to look beyond the two women obstructing her view in search of anything potentially more diverting. The few other patrons making use of the patio were distant enough and the metropolitan ambiance significant enough that their conversation went largely unnoticed. Paige found herself utterly entranced by the deeply revealing v-neck, semi-sheer black blouse that plunged well below the curve of Bellatrix’s pale breasts. A pair of wide-legged black pinstripe slacks fluttered with the idle-movement of a single towering spike heel swinging forward and back. Much of her unrestrained pelt of inky curls had been hidden under the elegant curve of a black sun bonnet. 

 

“Trap.” Hermione replied succinctly.

 

“Whoever would have guessed?” Bellatrix’s glossy lips pulled into a wide smirk under the mirrored reflection of her sunglasses. In them, Paige could make out her own dumbfounded expression.

 

“So uh …” Paige cleared her throat. “Kara’s taken Clark to meet with the Defense Council on New Krypton about this latest threat.”

 

“And you remain behind to … ?” Bellatrix prompted with no lack of boredom lacing her words. She seemed a lot less shrill outside the echoing halls of Hogwarts without a class full of flailing if earnest students hopeful to impress. There was a bit of whiskey in the woman’s voice since adopting the muggle vice of smoking. Paige fidgeted uncomfortably. There was nothing attractive about the woman. Nothing. She watched as Bellatrix’s expression evolved from bland to smug and immediately erected her mental wards. So much for an expectation of privacy.

 

“She’s here to help us.” Hermione sat down at the table to which Bellatrix responded with the indiscreet blowing of smoke into the younger witch’s face. Hermione batted ineffectively at the cloud with a hand and cleared her throat.

 

“Help with?” Bellatrix sighed her pre-emptive disinterest. “I have no intention of turning myself back in, even if you manage somehow to clear your name, Puppy.” Puppy, Paige mouthed turning an inquisitive gaze on Hermione who only shrugged, rolling her eyes.

 

“You will serve out your sentence, Bellatrix. I swear that on your life.” Hermione’s tone was steely. Puppy, Paige mouthed again earning a look of undisputed warning from Hermione.

 

“Well, Metropolis is as safe a place as any for the two of you to evade immediate capture while you puzzle all that out.” Paige shifted her gaze between the two witches choosing not to weigh in on what appeared to be an on-going point of contention. Bellatrix simply shrugged the picture of indifference. Prior to this, they’d been holed up in Kara’s apartment in National City. Far too close of quarters even in Kara’s absence. She hadn’t made much use of it since the battle, spending most of her time on New Krypton chasing down the clues that had led them to Lex Luthor.

 

“Besides, I help you,” Paige pulled up a third seat to the small table, and draped herself into it casual as you please. “You help me.”

 

“Something specific you had in mind?” Bellatrix flapped the hand bearing her cigarette with impatient expectation, dislodging ash off the end and onto the table in the process.

 

“We have a common enemy.” Hermione murmured. The look she bore brooked little in the way of argument and yet Bellatrix was intractable in her glossy facade.

 

“I have no enemies left, Puppy. Nor allies.” Bellatrix smirked. “The war is over, lest you forget. Your bloody lot won it.”

 

“You can’t truly believe that wizarding society faces no threat from my kin.” Paige peered, willing herself to see beyond the shadowed lenses obscuring Bellatrix’s fathomless eyes.

 

“Thousands of years living freely only to suddenly blossom at the heart of their interest?” Bellatrix shrugged, unconvinced. “And what if? The hell with wizarding society. I haven’t any intention of giving in to civic duty when I’ve found myself so well-suited to the alternative.”

 

“Says the muggle-hating blood purist.” Paige murmured under her breath to which Bellatrix tilted her head unimpressed. Paige feigned an impromptu fit of coughing.

 

“Short-sighted as ever Bellatrix.” Hermione remarked, surprisingly absent any rancor, with a shake of her head. “I used to wonder how a brilliant witch of your unparalleled talent could be so easily taken in by your so-called Dark Lord’s transparent rhetoric.”

 

“Careful where you tread, Mudpup.” The dark witch’s wand appeared in her hand with such ease to have gone unnoticed until it was pointed directly before the tip of Hermione’s nose. “Let’s not dredge up any old feelings.”

 

“You mean feelings about your patently false assertions that second wizarding war was intended to purify magical society when Voldemort himself had veins as mudslick as my own according to you and yours.” Hermione’s voice was soft, but sure, surgical as it cut away the deception in favor of the indiscriminate truth. “He was a great wizard in that he conjured your loyal devotion in spite of your need so desperately to cling to fabricated racial biases such as blood purity. You and your Death Eater cronies were toys in his admittedly able hands. That, Bellatrix, is what you cannot see and it only serves as further testimony to your naivete.”

 

“My naivete?!” Bellatrix screeched, seemingly more incensed by this suggestion than any proceeding it. Paige glanced around uncomfortably aware that the outburst had garnered a bit of attention from their fellow coffee patrons. “Child, a glimpse of my most secret deeds would turn your blood cold.” Bellatrix drew the tired old rags of her deadly reputation around her as though that alone could defy the uncertainty in the sharp set of her shoulders or the tremble in the pale hand holding her wand as a deadly afterthought. The truth was a terrible weapon against even one so coached, so practiced at menace.

 

“As if cruelty is unique to the wizarding world.” Hermione scoffed. “Do you think muggles incapable of violence and depravity? You know nothing of what I know. And there is little left in this world or the next that could make my blood run any colder than it does right now.”

 

“He was my Dark Lord and you will not defile his name with your filthy …” Bellatrix fumbled, sunglasses slipping down the bridge of her nose to reveal the flash of thick lashes as she blinked rapidly. Hermione watched mesmerized as Voldemort’s first lieutenant, his deadliest of Death Eaters, struggled to maintain composure. It was surreal to observe the bottomless black of Bellatrix’s empty eyes fill steadily with tears. As if to shade her own vulnerability, Bellatrix shoved the glasses black in place so that Hermione was once again privy to her own image in the dark mirrored surface of the lenses.

 

“It’s disappointing really, after all this, that you never cut to the heart of it.” Hermione leaned forward, letting Bellatrix’s wand float a hairsbreadth away. “You rather cling to your self-serving ignorance and hatred. Could you never just ask why the outcomes of every conflict always seem to be preset?”

 

“So you’d take us back, begging on your knees before the Ministry to follow your dubious lead into another bloody war, these very same wizards and witches who sentenced you to Azkaban for throwing a pep rally?” Bellatrix scoffed. “Your name graces the cover of every newspaper right next to mine. They don’t justify dead or alive for a politician, pet. You’re a fugitive and you’ll be lucky if they throw you back into whatever dank cell you managed to crawl out of the first time.”

 

“That was three years ago. The DSS has made significant strides towards legitimacy since then. Kingsley will listen and I can make the rest understand.” Hermione shook her head, undeterred by the derisive cackle with which her words were met. “This isn’t just about my continued freedom nor is it even so simple as the struggle muggle-born wizards and witches face against institutionalized blood purism. Our institutions won’t soon exist without wizards and witches to uphold them. We can’t waste time now pointing fingers and othering our would-be allies with the word, them. It’s down to all of us. For all of our fates may soon rest in the hands of the kin.”

 

“My so-called is nothing compared to your own. Have you heard yourself?” Bellatrix quirked an unimpressed grin that teetered well over the border into manic. “You waltz back singing that tune and they’ll put you in Mungo’s instead of Azkaban, or is that what you’re hoping?” Paige rolled her eyes, looking around with hopes that the rising ire at the table wasn’t drawing an audience. These confrontations in public places while trying to maintain some semblance of anonymity absolutely defied all reason. As if the woman tapping diligently upon her laptop two tables away wouldn’t notice a bit of mid-afternoon bloodshed on the patio. On cue, said patron took a sip of her iced beverage and met Paige’s eye with an expression that virtually screamed, the fuck you looking at? Paige rapidly averted her gaze, nevermind that.

 

“There are those who are not called to a craft.” When Hermione spoke, it wasn’t anger battering the tension, it was the weighty knowledge of a truth that made the wand in Bellatrix’s hand quake. “Those who magic, they are the very same who seat their belief in objects, convinced that power is literally a thing, a wand that they wave.” Hermione gazed unerringly at Bellatrix, shuttered behind her newly adapted muggle trappings but hardly immune to the message. “Those who magic rather than craft, can be incapacitated by removing the focus of this faulty worship. Such a curious weakness to nurture within oneself.”

 

“You imply I cannot destroy you, Pet, without my wand.” Bellatrix let her arm drop, hand resting idly against the table. Her wand barely clutched between her fingertips was deceivingly innocuous. Paige knew from experience that there was nothing tying or taming the power Bellatrix wielded. Her infamous autonomy from the so-called tools of wizardry, wandless magic, broomless flight, legilimency had made her an oddity. Peerless in these skills, feared, yet still she clung to a tradition that surely she knew hobbled rather than enhanced her abilities.

 

“She implies,” Paige interrupted, in spite of the queasiness that rose as she drew Bellatrix’s attention. “That the greatest lie ever told your kind, a lie upheld thousands of years by wizarding society, is that the so-called power you’ve all relinquished to those precious wands is your only connection to your craft rather than the oldest, most insidious trap.”

 

“A trap?” Bellatrix repeated, the patented disbelief in her voice wavered.

 

“By the kin.” Hermione intoned, sitting back to regard Bellatrix. “You can’t truly believe that we’d simply escaped the notice of creatures so profane and omnipotent?”

 

“Your wands are the yoke by which they’ve controlled every wizard and witch since Merlin.” Paige nodded at the twelve and three quarters inches of walnut that dangled limply in Bellatrix’s hand. “All that you are, all that you do has been manipulated by them.” Bellatrix appeared incapable of argument, preternaturally still as the charge settled in the air around them. It was unthinkable that the supremacy for which two sides had fought, died, was at its core an ancient deception. Presented now with the truth, no choice but to await the moment in which collectively they bore witness as the top lifted off the box confirming them no more than the microscopic bugs crawling around inside it.

 

“Don’t you see, Bellatrix.” Hermione reached out and Paige’s breath caught as she watched, expecting Bellatrix to flinch, withdraw, and spit her ever-present venom. But the contrast of cocoa against pale cream as Hermione’s hand clasped the older witch’s loose fist, was undisturbed though impossible to say if unwelcome. “They’ve always been our only enemy. We just didn’t know it.”

 

Battle of Halliwell Manor  
One month ago

 

Ingrid Beauchamp willed back nausea, pushing against the pulpy give of her brother’s ravaged chest. He’d appeared as something out of a comic book, unreal, impossibly pin-cushioned by the arrows the kin had cursed. Her pale hands, black with his blood, worked to preserve the fragile beating that seemed only to flush more of the syrupy liquid outward in a horrific flood.

 

“Hold on. Hold on.” She breathed, gaze passing anxiously over the slackness of his face and vacant eyes. She ventured a glance over her shoulder where Freya sat, right hand clutching desperately at a wound to her left shoulder. She stared at Frederick’s body in shock, blood seeping between her fingers, dribbling her chin as she intermittently coughed.

 

“Paige!” Ingrid lifted her head, screaming into the smoke that surrounded them. Her calls had thus far echoed without answer. “Paige!” Where was the witch whose healing power Ingrid had seen save the Kryptonian from death at the hand of the kin’s cursed arrows.

 

“What happened?” Ingrid’s head tracked the timely arrival, expression easing in relief. “Thank goodness.” Ingrid breathed, and nodded in Freya’s general direction, arms stiff as she continued to pump tirelessly. Frederick wasn’t gone yet and she wouldn’t simply let him slip away to his rest. Not yet, she swore for her mother’s sake. Not yet. “Have you any way to help my sister?”

 

“I haven’t.” Piper Halliwell stood within reach of the Beauchamp siblings. She made no indication of indulging even a single step farther, as though she meant to lend the assistance for which Ingrid appeared so desperate.

 

“Can you find, Paige? Please!” Ingrid tore her attention away from Frederick to glance at Piper. The Halliwell witch was the very model of stoicism as she watched Ingrid’s frantic movements. She was disturbingly unmoved by the scene unfolding before her. “Piper please!” Piper’s eyes drifted, touching briefly on Freya who sagged weakly, eyes barely open.

 

“Piper?” Ingrid nearly stilled, watching the fog part in a momentary breeze. “Who is that with you?” Blank faced, Piper paid no heed to Ingrid’s question, simply raised her hands.

 

 

Danvers Family Rule  
11 Years Ago

 

They had to drag her off, wild, rending the air with vendettas. “You ever touch her again McCoy, I will bury you and anyone else dumb enough to fight your battles. I swear it! Do you hear me?” It took two teachers, her body manic between them, to eject her from the playground, a rapt if shocked audience observing as she disappeared with a slamming of heavy metal doors, promises echoing under a pale blue sky. Virtually vibrating in the center of the blacktop, fists curled at her sides, Kara watched.

 

Alex had never been a fan of bullies. But the rule in the Danvers household had ever been, no fighting. It drew too much attention, the likes of which a family as unique as theirs could ill afford. That wasn’t to say that long before and even after Kara’s arrival, Jeremiah Danvers had neglected what he thought to be his responsibility as a father with a daughter in a world often touched by violence. Simply, Alex knew how to defend herself handedly. 

 

Thus when Kara became Alex’s responsibility in a world touched by the kind of violence that took fathers from daughters far too soon, the household rule on fighting became somewhat blurred in her eyes. Because bullies are ever determined to equate difference as weakness, Matthew McCoy honed in on Kara Danvers her very first day of school. He, and his handful of brutes boasting recent growth spurts, terrorized the playground at recess. Skinned knees and black eyes mercilessly doled out to any and all who made a foolhardy attempt at resistance.

 

Kara had spent the first half of recess bombarded by the light, the sounds, wishing for home or for Alex who was so far away, hidden within the brick and mortar of the school. She stood trembling on the edge of the blacktop, eyes closed, waiting for a calm that never truly seemed to come. This, undoubtedly, why she did not hear them. She felt the shove, her eyes drifting open and recognized the menace in their grinning countenance. She turned, finding herself surrounded … three, four, five, she counted and swallowed, squinting at the rapid movement of lips. Sometimes the words were still difficult to recognize when they came so fast, chewed up, mooshed together, spat. 

 

“Hey freak!” She knew what that one meant. Usually she heard it as part of a huffed warning from Alex - “Don’t be a freak, Kara.” Alex would be disappointed. Kara felt a wash of shame. She hated disappointing Alex and Eliza. It was hard to not be a freak. Too many rules to remember. She stumbled, feeling another shove from behind quickly followed by a third, sending her bouncing around the tight circle the boys had formed. She could think of nothing to say but knew to hold tight to the Danvers family rule. There would be no fight, not from her, not today.

 

“What’s it like to be a freak without a family?” Matthew McCoy sneered. Kara winced, the meaning of these words suddenly clear. It’s awful, she wanted to say, to lose a family but not unbearable when you are blessed with another that loves you as much as the Danvers loved Kara. She bit her lip, willing herself to be still, to wait for the calm that never quite came no matter how much she wished for it. Receiving a particularly forceful shove, she tripped over her own feet and dropped to her knees. Kara’s eyes slipped closed, and she concentrated on the feeling of asphalt and pebbles through the jeans Eliza had bought for her first day of school. She could feel the rip forming in the right knee. What would she tell Eliza when she returned home with fresh holes baring her knees? 

 

When Kara opened her eyes, the taunts had gone silent and Matthew McCoy seemed to be mirroring her position on his knees a few feet away. He held his hands cupped over his mouth and nose. Bright crimson ribboned from between his fingers. There were tears in his eyes widened with shock. Kara watched as Alex, an unexpected addition to this tableau, stepped away, turning in time to receive a blow to the midsection. She bent, gritting her teeth, and managed to duck a sloppily thrown left cross aimed in the general direction of her face. Bobbing like a pro, she weaved under the arm and delivered a solid elbow to an unprotected jaw. The boy dropped, heavy against the pavement and didn’t stir. 

 

Alex spared a glance Kara’s way and everything in her gaze commanded, “Stay put.” There would be only one Danvers breaking the family rule. Three opponents left, Alex could almost see them deciding to combine forces. Two went for her arms and the third received a kick to the groin for being the odd man out. Three bodies on the ground and Alex could feel the fight shift purposefully in her favor. She slammed her heel into the top of one boy’s foot, freeing her arm as he hopped, howling loudly. She turned to the other, grinned broadly and drew on her years of playing soccer, envisioning his shocked face as a ball descending with a perfect arch. The sound of his nose collapsing under the force of her forehead was dubiously wet. He too fell to the concrete, mewling like a maimed animal. 

 

She had every intention of pursuing the boy who’d hopped off with little more than a bruise on the top of his foot. But the response to what had been little more than a ten second altercation, was swift. Alex allowed herself to be taken in hand by two of the teachers running from the building. She could see the nurse behind them, equipped with a first aid kit. The playground had gone eerily silent in spite of the audience of children and adults. Alex cleared her throat, intending to start the careful and deliberate process of apology that she knew was necessary even if she didn’t entirely agree with it. She was interrupted by Matthew McCoy, still on his knees, blood dripping from his chin and staining his teeth as he shouted.

 

“She started it. Her and her freak sister.” He pointed a single finger of accusation at Kara as he lied and Alex decidedly cast aside her determination to stride the higher road. She nearly managed to wrench herself away from the adult male bookends grasping her shoulders. Had she succeeded, Matthew McCoy might be swallowing a few teeth. Instead he looked on smugly as she struggled in a firm grip

 

“You lie, McCoy.” She growled and had to turn awkwardly as she was led away in order to glare at the boy. “Everyone knows it.” His only response was to draw his index finger across his neck miming a promise he had in mind for Kara and Alex alike. Incensed, Alex attempted to free herself with renewed vigor.

 

“You won’t touch her.” Alex shouted, as she was dragged step by step toward the school. Frozen yet on her knees and surrounded by bloody chaos, Kara’s eyes locked on Alex as she disappeared from sight, pulled into the building. She could hear Matthew McCoy snickering even as the nurse saw to his bloody nose.

 

“Are you alright, sweetie?” The teacher, whom she had met just that morning, cast a shadow that eased some of the blinding light from Kara’s sensitive eyes. Her name was Julia Jordan. Ms. Jordan had freckles warming cheeks the complexion of coffee sweetened by a touch of cream. The wide energetic halo of her hair under the the burning sun had reminded Kara of the sky back home on Krypton, coppery red. She wore glasses with black and white polka dots on the frames and a simple drop waist dress in a deep, royal blue. Kara had blushed that morning when Eliza had made the necessary introductions, urging Kara to shake hands as humans customarily do. But for Kara any skin on skin contact was intimate, and uncomfortable with a newly met stranger. Now especially, as Ms. Jordan bent beside her to place a gentle hand against Kara’s cheek, it was difficult not to shrink away.

 

Kara didn’t speak. She couldn’t remember the words. She gazed at the doorway behind which she could hear Alex being led down a long hallway. She wished nothing more than to be at Alex’s side. Dismayed Kara knew Eliza would surely be disappointed at this outcome for her very first school day on Earth. 

 

Kara hadn’t realized she was crying until she felt the tissue, soft against her cheeks. It smelled warm and floral, and Kara blushed intuiting from where Ms. Jordan had retrieved it. She acquiesced to the hand at her elbow, pulling her gently to her feet. Kara swallowed, blinking rapidly, having to crane her neck, look up and up to glimpse the woman’s smiling face, feel the comfort of it. Julia Jordan was perhaps the tallest human Kara had ever encountered in her short time on Earth. She towered, reedy and graceful, but was not the least bit intimidating. Kara allowed herself to be drawn close against the woman’s sleek side. Eliza, who had often been the warmth into which Kara nestled for comfort, was decidedly petite and curvy in comparison. Kara found with little curiosity that she didn’t much mind the difference.

 

“Come on.” Julia Jordan offered a tender smile and placed an arm around Kara’s trembling shoulders. “Let’s go call your mom, huh.” 

 

 

 

“What were you thinking?!” Kara cringed, huddled in the backseat of Jeremiah’s old pickup. Eliza piloted the vehicle with careful precision even as she chastised Alex with vehemence. Silent and penitent in the front passenger seat, Alex cradled her right hand under a half melted ziploc bag of ice. Kara had guiltily listened from the foyer of the principal’s office when Eliza had at last arrived, wild-eyed with worry and been ushered behind the door where Alex had spent the hour and a half they’d awaited their mother fidgeting with wary anticipation.  
“I was protecting Kara.” Alex mumbled, gazing stiffly forward.

 

“And the best way to do that was to break three noses.”

 

“Out of five …” Alex shrugged, nonchalantly.

 

“Don’t you dare!” Eliza’s voice took on a decidedly cool quality. “We do not make light of fighting, regardless of the circumstances.”

 

“Dad would have …” Alex began, but halted seeing her mother give an involuntary jerk at the mention of her father.

 

“Your father isn’t here, Alexandra, I am.” Eliza Danvers cleared her throat, taking her hand from the steering wheel to swiftly wipe at her cheek.

 

“It’s an in-school suspension, Mom. It’s the punishment they give when they don’t truly want to punish you.” Alex sighed. “Matthew McCoy and those other boys had it coming. The principal practically gave me a high five.”

 

“You cannot spend the rest of your life breaking noses, Alex.” Eliza shook her head. There it was, Kara thought sadly, the disappointment. Alex could see it too, and seemed visibly to wilt underneath it.

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

“You protect Kara, but you honor our rule, always. Do you understand me?” Stopped at a traffic light, Eliza glanced away from the road just long enough to meet Alex’s gaze. There was no mistaking her meaning. Kara hadn’t uttered a word since the altercation. As Eliza had departed the principal’s office, Alex following obediently behind, she’d taken one look at Kara and swept her up without hesitation. Kara had buried her face in Eliza neck, blocking out sights and sounds, all but the strong arms holding her as Eliza silently marched to the truck. As she’d carefully placed Kara in the back seat and buckled her in, Eliza had paused long enough to run a tender hand through Kara’s hair. She hadn’t asked if Kara was alright, hadn’t pressed for words knowing Kara’s current struggle reached well beyond the verbal. Eliza made the nonsense noise of comfort that often accompanied a warm hand rubbing circles on Kara’s chest and a warm kiss to the forehead, before shutting the door and climbing into the driver’s seat.

 

“Yes ma’am, I understand.” Alex repeated, pious in her recitation. There was little she did with equal fervor to protecting and defending Kara, save perhaps minding her mother.

 

“Good.” Eliza nodded. The light changed and the truck pulled forward, carrying them on their way in silence.

 

11 Years Later

 

“Alex, you broke the rule.” Kara had whispered, forehead crumpled in dismay. That Alex had traded her integrity to protect Kara from a pack of bullies, could there be any greater shame, Kara wondered, than to have been the reason for which Alex had compromised.  
“Kara, no matter the odds and no matter the consequence, I will always fight for you. Always. That is the only family rule that matters and I’ll die before I break it.”

 

That memory, Kara cherished, above all. In it was the unwavering foundation that had steadied and supported every tentative step forward on this alien world.

 

“When I was a sophomore in high school, word got around that Matthew McCoy was going to ask me to winter formal not because I was popular enough to date a second string quarterback but for the sole purpose of deflowering me in the back of his Dad’s pickup in the parking lot after the dance.” Kara pursed her lips gazing at the skyline of Metropolis City. It was nothing like the home she’d known before the home she’d adopted except in its frenetic activity, alive with activity as Krypton once was. “The same day that rumor started, Alex walked into the boy’s locker room before football practice and threatened to beat him to death in front of the entire team and coaching staff.” 

 

“Woah.” Paige murmured, eyes trained on Kara’s profile. Her passing acquaintance with Alex Danvers had not left even meager suspicion on Paige’s part that any of that story had been embellished.

 

“From what I understand of human anatomy, he was very lucky to be wearing an athletic guard at the time.” Kara quirked a half grin of amusement. Alex had driven them home from school that day in careful silence before offhandedly suggesting that Kara not mention anything about the winter formal or the football team to Eliza at dinner.

 

“Your sister is a badass.” Paige murmured.

 

 

After the War Began  
One Month Ago

 

“They’ll take everything from me. Every family I’m intended to have they’ll destroy.”

 

Kara reached out, grabbed Paige’s hand, as if anticipating. Paige had every intention of orbing away. She needed to escape the bloody destruction, her home, her family. This was the war that Frederick predicted when she’d been too blind to comprehend. And now she knew, she was the arbiter of this. 

 

“You can’t just leave.” Kara spoke softly though her grip was firm. “There’s nowhere for you to run.”

 

“But I can’t.” Paige hiccuped, shaking her head as though she could avert her eyes from the despair that surrounded them. Paige had orbed what remained of her family to the safety and wards promised in East End. There was little enough left of the Beauchamp kids to bury, but Paige had performed the grim work necessary that their remains could be interned near their family home. And Joanna already showing the signs of her next cursed pregnancy even as she grieved, host to such horrendous loss the likes Paige had never seen. 

 

Prue had been stern in her instruction. Go. Find the Grimoire and come back. No detours. She’d only trusted Paige to this simple mission knowing that Kara was an undeterred sentinel at Paige’s side. And besides, in that motherly way only Cordelia could manage and thus convince Prue, they collectively seemed to know what Paige needed most was a moment alone with her own grief and anger and confusion. How had all this come to pass? Cordelia had pressed a quick kiss to Paige’s temple and Prue had pulled them both into a hug. Phoebe had offered a choked, “You be quick.” Nodding to Kara and shooing them both out the door as though their sky hadn’t fallen down around them, destroying all they’d considered to be safe. Because Phoebe had to believe it would be okay, even when they all knew it couldn’t. Could it?

 

Kara pulled Paige into her arms, held on steadily as tears soaked into the material of her besieged uniform. All that remained pristine of General Kara Zor-El was her family’s coat of arms, resplendent upon her chest. Kara had lost a few soldiers, sons and daughters of Krypton, to this terrible battle and there would be souls to set on the path to Rao’s light that very night. But for now, in the grim light of this early Earth day, she’d help Paige sift through the rubble.

 

“Piper?” Paige pulled away, her eyes locked on the shifting cloud of smoke, dust and ash. “Piper!” Her voice took on a desperate note and she lunged into the murk, slipping from Kara’s grasp with unexpected speed.

 

“Paige, wait!” Using her enhanced vision she followed as Paige intermittently orbed and picked through the haphazard deconstruction of broken brick, cracked and burnt beams of wood, shattered glass. She slippedd a time, nearly tumbling through the refuse and Kara’s breath halted sure that Paige would impale herself on rebar, only to disappear in a shower of sparkling light and reappear sure footed at the apex of a pile of crumbling plaster and other unidentifiable remnants. 

 

“Piper.” Paige reached out. A figure covered in blood and soot, crouched unmoving in the midst of it all. Piper indeed, Kara recognized, clinging tightly to the book for which they’d come to search. She arrived a breath after Paige. Her instincts firing to pull Paige away but an instant too late. 

 

“Paige.” Kara shouted, eyes locked on the huddled figure before them, Paige barely two paces ahead. Kara could whisk her away in a blink, she was faster wasn’t she? And yet her warning seemed to trip and fall clumsily from her lips. “Don’t.” Paige had glanced back to regard Kara, incredulity not quite fully formed and Paige unable to see in her periphery the sudden movement. No one had seen Piper since the battle. 

 

Kara moved quickly enough to bear the brunt of the explosive force but not enough to protect Paige completely. She caught merely a glimpse as Paige was rocketed into a pile of brick, landing motionless. Kara did not take a moment to draw a breath as she determined the steady sound of Paige’s heartbeat. Instead she turned and loosed the full power of her heat vision. It was met with a frozen stream of energy that buffeted her backwards, sliding through the scree as she struggled for purchase. Piper howled, her voice rose above the otherwise still neighborhood like the call of something deeply wild. She held the Grimoire in one hand and Kara at bay with the other. Though Kara pressed, she gained no ground. She could feel her own power waning quickly and knew in this she was no match for Piper’s power. 

 

Kara spun away, felt the unspeakable chill of Piper’s attack arc past, shooting into the sky. Kara would launch no counterattack as Piper already regrouping to unleash had her eyes set on Paige’s immobilized form. This time Kara was an instant faster, scooping Paige from the rubble just before it exploded, fiery debris raining down around her as she threw herself unrestrained toward the sky heedless of her precious cargo. Below her Piper aimed and fired, clipping Kara’s legs, her side then missing again and again with distance, until she was little more than a speck on the ground far below. It was cold at these altitudes and speeds. Cold enough to rouse Paige to semi-consciousness.

 

“Wha …”Paige slurred, turning her face into Kara’s neck. 

 

“Shh.” Kara tightened her hold, relieved to feel Paige stirring to awareness. “I’m going to get you back to East End.”

 

“Grim …” Paige’s mouth worked sluggishly, searching for the sounds she couldn’t quite pattern in the haze of what was surely a concussion.

 

“Piper has it.” Kara muttered, gritting her teeth as she attempted to reconcile all she’d witnessed. 

 

“Alex …”

 

“Kara? Where are you?” There was everything in the tone of Kara’s voice over the phone that had Alex walking out of her lab and striding through the corridors of the DEO. Wherever Kara was and whatever she needed, Alex would be there.

 

“I’m in East End.” Alex changed the course of her steps headed for the hanger. She’d take a helicopter to the DEO’s offsite aeronautic research base. Thirteen years of directed study of Kara’s pod and the occasional help from the on board AI hadn’t manifested a prototype of a mach ten aircraft so much as a small fleet of them for DEO missions. J’Onn would approve her request and she’d be in New England within the hour.

 

“I’m on my way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi Folks,
> 
> My initial plan had been to write this second installment of NQG as a serial that could be updated at regular intervals. My attempts to do so haven't resulted in much success. Languishing in writer's block, this edit is the closest I've come to a proper update since I last posted. If you've enjoyed the story, then I do encourage you to hang in there. I =have a few ideas rattling around that will eventually evolve into the completion of NQG:Onus. In the interim, I'll be re-reading and re-watching the Harry Potter franchise, watching Season 2 of Supergirl, and expanding my character study of the Beauchamps and all the other players in the NQG universe.
> 
> Thanks again for reading!


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